NEAR RECORD ORANGE CROP PROJECTED

Government forecasters on Wednesday estimated that Florida will harvest a near record orange crop of 196 million boxes and a record 55.5 million boxes of grapefruit.

The numbers were close to what industry specialists had been expecting - high enough to keep retail prices low and sales volume high.

For consumers, it's good news but presents a challenge for the industry to market the crop profitably, said Daniel Santangelo, executive director of the Florida Department of Citrus in Lakeland. The orange crop would be second in size to the 206.7 million-box harvest in the 1979-80 season.

"Our objectives are to try to improve returns for the growers," Santangelo said. "For the third month in a row we've had record sales of orange juice ... so we've got strong consumer demand."

Elsewhere across the country, farmers this fall will harvest the biggest corn and soybean crops ever produced in the United States, the Agriculture Department predicted on Wednesday.

But a devastating drought in Australia that has cut wheat production there to the lowest levels in recent memory, and scattered crop problems elsewhere throughout the world, will increase foreign demand for U.S. crops, the government said.

In a closely watched report, the government estimated that farmers will reap 9.602 billion bushels of corn, surpassing the 1992 record corn crop of 9.482 billion bushels.

It said this year's soybean crop will total a record 2.458 billion bushels, breaking the 1979 record of 2.26 billion.

Not since 1979 has the United States produced a record corn and soybean crop in the same year.

A combination of near-perfect weather in the major growing areas of the Midwest and a substantial increase in plantings accounted for the dramatic recovery from last year's flood-reduced crop.